It’s getting harder to get funding for tick surveys as federal public health grants dry up.
Biologist Grant Hokit came to this small meadow in the mountains outside Condon, Montana, to look for ticks. A hiking path crossed the expanse of long grasses and berry bushes.
As Hokit walked the path, he carried a handmade tool made of plastic pipes taped together to hold a large rectangle of white flannel cloth.
He poked fun at this “sophisticated” device, but the scientific survey was quite serious: He was sweeping the cloth over the shrubs and grass, hoping that “questing” ticks would latch on.
Along the summer trail, ticks dangle from blades of grass, sticking their legs out and waiting for a passing mammal.
“We got one,” Hokit said.
“So that came off of this sedge grass right here,” he said. “Simply pick them off with our fingers. We’ve got a vial that we pop them in.”
Any captured ticks would go back to Hokit’s lab in Helena for identification. Most of them would probably be identified as Rocky Mountain wood ticks.
But Hokit also wanted to find out whether new species are making their way into the state.
As human-driven climate change makes winters shorter, ticks are spending less time hibernating and have more active months when they can hitch rides on animals and people. Sometimes the ticks carry themselves — and diseases— to new parts of the country.
Hokit found deer ticks for the first time in northeastern Montana earlier this year. Deer ticks are infamous for transmitting Lyme disease and can infect people with other pathogens.
Knowing a new species like the deer tick has arrived in Montana or other states is important for doctors.
Neil Ku is an infectious disease specialist at the Billings Clinic in eastern Montana. He said most patients don’t come in right after they get bitten by a tick.
